1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fasteners for temporarily clamping two or more components prior to permanent fixing.
It is sometimes desirable to remove a fastener. For example it may be desirable to secure temporarily a sheet of material in place over a frame to align it before making a permanent fastening of the sheet of material to a frame, e.g. when applying a skin to an aircraft wing frame.
The discussion below relates to the assembly of aircraft structures because the accurate alignment of components prior to permanently fixing with a large number of fastening means is particularly important. However, the invention may be used in any application where two or more components are to be joined together.
Aircraft structures, such as wing sections and fuselages, are assembled by fixing sheet materials to rigid members such as spars, ribs, runners, stringers etc. In order to fix, for example, a wing-skin panel to a number of ribs, the wing-skin panel is placed over the ribs, aligned and clamped securely in place. A series of holes are drilled through the materials, and permanent fastenings such as rivets are placed and secured. For small structures clamping of the component materials can be along the edge of the materials. For large structures however it is not possible to achieve accurate alignment with this technique. For the assembly of large structures a series of clamping holes are drilled at selected points across the structure. Temporary fasteners are then inserted into these holes to secure the component materials while further holes are drilled to receive permanent rivet fasteners. When rivets have been placed and secured the temporary fasteners are removed and subsequently replaced with permanent rivet fastening. The number and location of the temporary fastenings will vary between applications, but for a typical wing set, i.e. two complete wings, for a large commercial passenger aircraft, the number of temporary fastenings used can reach around 25,000. It is convenient for such temporary fasteners to be operated from one side of the work-piece only, i.e. to be able to insert and activate the fastener from above the work-piece without having to perform an operation on the underside of the work-piece, for instance screwing or tightening. Not only does one-sided operation simplify the assembly process, but it is often the case that the underside of a work-piece is not accessible at all. Fasteners that are operable from a single side of the work-piece are termed “blind” fasteners.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, spring-loaded temporary fasteners are used, of the type shown in FIG. 1. The fastener has a body 101, a cap 102 and jaws 103. The jaws 103 of the fastener are biased towards, and rest against, a locating strip 104. The jaws 103 are extended by depressing the cap 102 against the action of an internal spring (not shown). Extension of the jaws 103 causes them to travel along the locating strip 104. As the jaws 103 reach the end of the strip and their width becomes narrowed. The jaws 103 may then pass through a hole between work-pieces A and B. As the pressure on the cap 102 is removed the jaws 103 retract and expand as they travel back along the locating strip 104 towards the body 101. As they expand the jaws grip the outer surface of work-piece B and pull it towards work-piece A.
As can be seen from FIG. 1, the bulk of the fastener is above the top surface of the work-piece and is therefore exposed and vulnerable and presents an obstruction on the surface of the work-piece. This is a particular problem in automated assembly processes; tool heads sweep rapidly across the surface of the materials and protruding fasteners will impede the movement of these automated tools. Another problem with the prior art shown in FIG. 1 is that the maximum clamping pressure is determined by the strength of the internal spring.